


Floating Points

by tanks4thememory



Category: Tron - All Media Types
Genre: Calvinball, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 03:29:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1140893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanks4thememory/pseuds/tanks4thememory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few average programs in a random system run across the group of programs that run the local Bejeweled game playing a game of their own. Confusion ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Floating Points

_“A little nonsense, now and then, is relished by the wisest men.”-_ Gene Wilder “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (1971)

 

***************************************************************************************

 

Abi watched the group of programs in oddly colorful clothing running around and shouting cheerfully at each other, tossing, kicking, whacking, and otherwise flinging around what looked like an old-style identity disk (inactive, thankfully), and wondered what in the name of all the Users they were doing. Well, that wasn’t quite true; it was obvious that they were playing some sort of game. But still, she couldn’t for the code of her figure out what the parameters were. Or the goal. Or… anything about it really.

 

“Greetings, program,” someone said from nearby, and Abi almost jumped. She’d been so engrossed in attempting to figure out the game that the group of oddly dressed programs were playing that she hadn’t noticed the pair of other programs approaching.

 

“Greetings,” she replied, adding a ping of mildly embarrassed apology.

 

“I’m Lazarus,” the taller of the two programs introduced himself, politely adding simple ident ping stating his function at the same time. He was an accessory program attached to one of the browsers, designed to make and store text data backups, then present them when called. “And this is Adblock.”

 

“Just call me Ad,” said the shorter but stockier one as he was introduced with a smile and a similar polite ping. He was another accessory program to the same browser, but his function was very different, as evidenced by the armor he wore.  He was a low level security program, designed to catch and contain any number of annoyingly persistent bits of malware.

 

“Abiword,” she introduced herself, pinging across her function as a simple word processor. “Call me Abi.”

 

“Ah, so you’re the one,” Ad said. “Came in with the most recent batch of downloads, right?” She nodded, surprised that he recognized her. “Heard we were getting a new word processor. Word was complaining to Zen about it down at the Side Bar, wondering what our User needed another word processor for.”

 

“He was?”, Abi asked, somewhat dismayed, and annoyed. ‘ _Great… barely installed and already I’m causing a disruption._ ’

 

Lazarus chuckled. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s a known fact that Word is kind of a glitch sometimes, especially when overcharged, but he’s all talk. Zen’s the only one with the patience enough to put up with him.”

 

Ad nodded. “Patience of a Guardian, that one,” he agreed. “I don’t know how he does it.”

 

“Anyway,” Lazarus said, “allow me to welcome you to the system, if someone hasn’t already. You finding your way around alright?”

 

Abi nodded, smiling a bit. “Thanks,” she replied. “And yes, everyone’s been very helpful. Though… maybe you could explain something to me?”

 

Ad grinned. “You mean them, right?”, he asked, indicating the group of colorfully dressed programs nearby. Abi nodded and Lazarus rolled his eyes, though Ad continued grinning. “They’re the bunch that runs Bejeweled. Our User plays it for millicycles on end, sometimes, but when they’re not needed, they usually end up doing this.”

 

“Never could understand the appeal of spending all your time moving colorful crystals around,” Lazarus said. “But our User seems to enjoy it and so do they, which I guess makes sense; it’s their function, after all. This, though?” He shook his head in annoyance.

 

“What sort of game is it?”, Abi asked. “What are the rules? And the goal?”

 

“A stupid one,” Lazarus said, ignoring her latter two questions.

 

Ad shook his head at his companion’s dismissiveness before replying. “We’ve never been able to figure it out,” he said. “Near as we can tell, the rules seem to change form moment to moment. As do the boundaries of the playing field, so be careful if you stand around watching too long.”

 

Abi watched as a wild-haired program in red with blue-white circuits raced by wearing- was that an old jai-ali cesta? Where had he even _found_ that?- and shouting about double points for tossing the inactive disc into ‘Sector Q’. Meanwhile, a taller one in orange with similar circuits intercepted and hooked the rolling disc with what looked like a piece of light energy conduit bent in an ‘L’ shape, flipping it over his shoulder to a female program in blue and calling out, “Haha, 64 Bit! A new record!” They seemed completely oblivious to the fact that they’d attracted an audience.

 

“What in Users’ name are they going on about?”, Abi asked. “There’s no bits around here. And if the rules keep changing, how does anybody know when they’ve won?”

 

Lazarus shrugged. “No idea,” he said. “I’m not even sure if _they_ know.”

 

“They don’t,” Ad said. “I asked one of them about it once and he just looked at me funny. Frankly I don’t think ‘winning’ ever occurred to them. They’re just playing… to play.” He shrugged. He clearly didn’t understand it either.

 

“But… what’s the point of a game if no one wins?”, Abi said. “There has to be some end goal, doesn’t there? Why else expend all that energy on something?”

 

“No idea,” Ad said. “They always were kind of weird. They’re mostly harmless, though-whoa!” He and Lazarus abruptly had to duck as the disc went flying through the space they’d just been occupying.

 

“Sorry!”, shouted a program in purple,  zipping by on a pair of light-skates and holding a half-extended baton staff. She looped back around to check on them and make sure they were unhurt, looking relieved when she saw they were alright.

 

“Watch it, will you?”, Lazarus said irritably.

 

“I said I was sorry,” the program in purple said with a shrug. “Besides, you’ve gotta keep on your toes when there’s a game going on.”

 

“Ha!”, shouted the one in red with the jai-ali cesta as he ran by in pursuit of the now rolling disc. “Nearly clipping two non-players in the AKB-47 area! That’s minus 30 points for you!”

 

“Not when it’s the third quarter-millicycle, and there’s a lightrail station less than five blocks away!”, the one in purple shouted and took off after the player in red, leaving the three other programs standing there staring after them, completely baffled.

 

After a few moments of simply standing in silence, Ad looked at the other two.  “What’s… say we all go to the Side Bar for a few drinks?”

 

“Better have some of that green on the menu,” Lazarus said. “Maybe after a few rounds of that some of this’ll make sense. Coming, Abi?”

 

“Yeah…”, she said, shaking her head a bit to try and clear the snarl in her processes, and giving her two new friends a rueful grin, which they proceeded to return. “I think we could all use a drink.”


End file.
